I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that foreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology and services, which store and communicate vast amounts of sensitive information, facilitate the digital economy, and support critical infrastructure and vital emergency services, in order to commit malicious cyber-enabled actions, including economic and industrial espionage against the United States and its people. I further find that the unrestricted acquisition or use in the United States of information and communications technology or services designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of foreign adversaries augments the ability of foreign adversaries to create and exploit vulnerabilities in information and communications technology or services, with potentially catastrophic effects, and thereby constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. This threat exists both in the case of individual acquisitions or uses of such technology or services, and when acquisitions or uses of such technologies are considered as a class. Although maintaining an open investment climate in information and communications technology, and in the United States economy more generally, is important for the overall growth and prosperity of the United States, such openness must be balanced by the need to protect our country against critical national security threats. To deal with this threat, additional steps are required to protect the security, integrity, and reliability of information and communications technology and services provided and used in the United States. In light of these findings, I hereby declare a national emergency with respect to this threat.
I’m not going to pretend I fully understand all the implications of this. But this huge. Like a nuke-on-Beijing huge.
In short, the God-Emperor has declared war against all foreign intelligence interests using China as an attack vector. He’s pissed in the Deep State’s cereal. He’s told China we’re ready to start building our own electronics back on American soil. He’s told the tech industry, all of it, that business as usual is over. Cheap, but compromised, electronics won’t be available from China, excuse me, “adversaries” for purchase by the US.
This goes beyond trade war. This just placed the Chinese electronic industry in a full nelson.
It’s entirely possible “Made in China” will become a rarity in the USA.
There will be a period of adjustment. Some things will be more expensive. How can they not, since they’ve been subsidized by the Chinese government? Companies will adapt or die. With any luck, manufacturing will come back to the US and her allies. The next generation of electronics will be more secure. A huge weak point will be shored up.
During the Peloponnesian War, Athens had outsourced her food production to foreign soil. The Spartans, not being idiots, ran a naval operation against the grain barges which led to the destruction of the superior Athenian navy and the capitulation of the Athenian state to Sparta.
President Trump seems to have taken that lesson to heart.
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How can anyone argue? Our elections have been meddled with, damnit! Let’s see where this leads…state of emergency, hunh?
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I agree that China is an obvious target of this EO based on its history as a bad actor and general enemy of the US. However, I wonder how this may also be used against US based companies such as Google and faceborg which are avid thieves of Americans’ private data which they sell for profit or give freely to America’s enemies (Obama, Clinton, DNC, etc.) likely including China.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if that was another purpose. Trump may not be playing 12-D underwater chess, but the man is thinking ahead all the time.